Oct 4
As the first snow arrives in Thórsmörk, our season comes to an end. Just a few more days now until packing and closing are completed. Sadly, it is finally time for us to hang up our orange waterproofs and head home…
News about our 2016 programme will be published here on December 19th.
Our last volunteer team has now left Thórsmörk and we begin to close down the base camp for the winter. During the last week we have been working with a team of 18 students from the International School of Zug and Luzern from Switzerland.
Despite heavy rain on 4 of their 5 work days, the team did not stop working and they completed a huge amount of tasks around the area. These included trail drainage and surfacing, tree planting, erosion repair work and bridge building.
Thank you all for your hard work! It was really good to work with your team and an excellent way to end our season. We hope that you have dried out by now and that you enjoyed your time with us and those rainy days (and rainbows) in Thórsmörk.
(Pictured: With work completed, there was just enough time for a campfire and a lesson in toasting the perfect marshmallow.)
A “hiking week” has been included in our 6-week projects since we began in 2013. The aim of this week is to provide an opportunity for the volunteer teams to complete the Laugavegurinn hike from Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk and to hike through their work areas. This summer however, challenging weather conditions meant that things did not quite go to plan …
Because of the late snow in the highlands, the first team which was scheduled to hike in June, was redirected to Skaftafell where they were hosted by our friends at Vatnajökull National Park during their holiday week. The second team went in August but ended the hike at Botnar (Emstrur) because of stormy weather in the area. Luckily though, the team was able to return to Botnar to complete the hike during our final long-range project which included replacing 180 way-markers along 18km of the trail.
Picture of our second team setting off from Lanmannalaugar (August, 2015).
As the summer comes to an end, most of our volunteers completed their placements and headed home today. Despite a cold and late start, our third season has been very successful with trail repair projects completed on sites from Morinsheiði to Hvanngil.
We would like to thank everyone who worked with our teams on the trails this summer. We hope that you have good memories of Thórsmörk and that you enjoyed your time with us working on the mountains and living in the forest. Thank you all for your hard work, support and friendship.
It is now time for us to take down the tents and pack the tools…. but maybe just one more campfire before we finish.
See you next season!
Each season, we begin with a week of induction and training for our Operations Team volunteers. The aim is to prepare them for their role which includes leading the teams, organizing our camps and the day management of the programme.
Tony Newby returned to Langidalur to run the training week for our 6 Operations Team volunteers (From UK, Germany, Australia and New Zealand). The week focused on team leadership skills, safety planning and practical skills training… with a few group exercises and games involving blindfolds thrown in.
A big thank you to Tony for a great week!
Thórsmörk Trail Volunteers 